be in collusion. She had seen a small, fair man,
dressed as a woman, hypnotizing the jewellers' agent into the belief that
he was locking his door when instead he was leaving it unlocked.

Then she had seen this man who, she asserted firmly, was dressed like
a woman, walk into his victim's cabin, hypnotize him into still deeper
unconsciousness, and take from his belt three long strings of pearls and
several magnificent diamonds, set and unset. These things she saw made
up into a bundle, wrapped in waterproof cloth, attached to a faintly
illuminated life-preserver, and thrown overboard.

Almost immediately after, she said, the life preserver was picked up by a
man in a small motor-launch let down from a steam yacht. The launch
quickly returned to the yacht, was taken up, and the yacht made off in
the darkness.

No life belt was missing from the _Monarchic_ and even if suspicion could
be entertained against any "small, fair man" (which was not the case,
apparently), there was no justification for a search. Therefore, although
a good many people believed in the seeress's vision, it proved nothing,
and the sensational affair remained as deep a mystery as ever when the
_Monarchic_ docked.

"The Countess de Santiago was the woman who looked in the crystal!"
Annesley said to herself. She wondered why, if Knight had been vexed with
the Countess for speaking of their friendship and of the _Monarchic_, as
he had once seemed to be, he should refer to it before these strangers.

She looked down the table, past the other faces to his face, and the
thought that came to her mind was, how simple and almost meaningless the
rest were compared to his. Among the fourteen guests--seven women and
seven men--though some had charm or distinction, his face alone was
complex, mysterious, and baffling.

Yet she loved it. Now, more than ever, she loved and admired it!

The dinner ended with a discussion between Knight and Constance as to how
the Countess de Santiago could be induced to pay a visit to Valley House,
despite the fact that she had never met Lord and Lady Annesley-Seton.
Like most women who had lived in Spanish countries, the Countess was
rather a "stickler for etiquette," her friend Nelson Smith announced.
Besides, her experience as an "amateur clairvoyante" made her quick to
resent anything which had the air of patronage. One must go delicately to
work to think out a scheme, if Lady Annesley-Seton were really in "dead
earnest